Jodie Foster made one of her earliest screen appearances on Adam-12

Half a century later, the role still sticks in her mind.

In the summer of 2018, Jodie Foster strutted onto the set of Jimmy Kimmel Live wearing a crimson suit and carrying a skull-tipped cane. She had recently injured her leg in a ski accident and she was working the late-night circuit to promote her latest film, the sci-fi noir Hotel Artemis. It was hard to fathom that her appearance was marking her 50th anniversary working in Hollywood. She made her debut in 1968 as a "Fairy" on Mayberry R.F.D.

Foster mentioned how she grew up "blocks away" from the talk show's studio, the El Capitan Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. As a child, she lived on Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood. "[Mom] did not like us being on [Hollywood] Boulevard, as you can imagine in the '70s," Foster said with a laugh. "We would drive down the block and she would say, 'If I ever catch you on Hollywood Boulevard, don't ever come home.'"

If young Jodie Foster did not spend her time hanging on the Boulevard, she certainly spent a fair amount of her adolescence in nearby studios. 

"I started [acting] when I was three," Foster explained to a stunned Kimmel. "My brother was an actor and he started because the kid across the street was an actor — and that's kind of what you did in Los Angeles." Her brother, Buddy, was a lead on Mayberry R.F.D., which explains how she landed that first gig.

"I did commercials and television," she continued. Kimmel asked her which TV shows she did. "Oh my gosh, all of them! I mean, every Seventies show — Nanny & The Professor or The Partridge Family or… yeah, and then Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Adam-12."

She was excited to be a part of them. "Oh, yeah! I was a full TV baby." 

Foster and Coleen Gray in ''Log 55: Missing Child''

It's interesting to note that her 1970 turn on Adam-12 was one of the jobs that popped into her head decades later. Unlike her multiple appearances on, say, The Courtship of Eddie's Father or My Three Sons, she popped up just once on the cop procedural. You can find her in "Log 55: Missing Child," dressed in a blue and red sailor dress as "Mary Bennett." Her character is a witness to the "Missing Child," one Janet O'Neill who did not get off her bus at her typical stop, much to the worry of her mother (Coleen Gray).

The scene was a meeting of Hollywood Legend generations. Gray had a career stretching back to the 1940s. She starred in motion pictures from legendary directors Frank Capra (Riding High) and Stanley Kubrick (The Killing). Foster would, years later, go on to win the Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award for Excellence in Film.

It just goes to show you the kind of fascinating things Officers Reed and Malloy find on their beat.

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23 Comments

Hogansucks1 41 months ago
Ms. Fosters performance in ‘Contact’ is always a favorite! It’s interesting that, the childhood experience’s that shape us, in ways that define us, as an individual.We can only try to put that puzzle together sometimes and make sense of it, and the best out of life. Isn’t she due for another good movie in the near future?? 😊
cyclerchik 42 months ago
Yeah , been a Foster fan since her copertone days 🏖️
varep81861 42 months ago
I get paid over $190 per hour working from home with 2 kids at home. i never thought i'd be able to do it but my best friend earns over 15k a month doing this and she convinced me to try. the potential with this is endless...,

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Wiseguy 42 months ago
Surprised MeTV did not mention her appearance alongside two iconic TV personalities (and MeTV stars) Raymond Burr and Rod Serling in an episode of Ironside.
dictracy 42 months ago
Really? Why the cracks on Foster’s sexuality? It doesn’t have anything to do with anything....
texasluva 42 months ago
Some child actors don't make it past their teens. Those that have made their whole careers and even still working. Here are some that we will all never forget.
1. Jodie Foster
2. Kurt Russell
3. Drew Barrymore
4. Ethan Hawke
5. Natalie Portman
6. Leonardo DiCaprio
7. Emma Watson
8. Ron Howard
9. Elijah Wood
10. Jeff Bridges
11. Elizabeth Taylor
12. Joseph Gordon-Levitt
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texasluva texasluva 42 months ago
Then there is the sound like did e dit da da da did e dit. Oh well that's another matter. It was fun to get you off track with a woman still living (how can this be) ha ha.
MaryHelen texasluva 42 months ago
Riding in Cars with Boys good one!
MrsPhilHarris texasluva 42 months ago
Oh how handy!
cperrynaples 42 months ago
It is OK for me to address the irony of Foster debuting as a fairy or should I just delete this post? LVN [Laughing Very Nervously]! At least she didn't play a Dutch girl...we all know what their water barriers are called!
cperrynaples cperrynaples 42 months ago
PS Surprized she mentioned the brother she hasn't talked to since he wrote his autobiography!
I'm wondering if she remembers her first tv appearance as fondly as she recalled Adam-12? Her first appearance came two years prior, {Adam-12 aired in 1970} in 1968 on Mayberry R.F.D. I'm also kind of sort of curious what she thought of "America's Heartthrob," {what Laurie called Keith,} David Cassidy? Whether he {but I doubt it, }was as ga-ga over him as a lot girls that age were, and still are.
Hogansucks1 cperrynaples 41 months ago
A levee ?—- In other words, it’s OK for me to call you a shallow human ! Too much hate on this Earth. 🤨
cperrynaples Hogansucks1 41 months ago
Ok. I'm sorry! Yes, that word is sorta of a gay slur, and no I would NEVER use the n-word!
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